Pac-12's Scott Is the Highest Paid College Commissioner

In his four years as commissioner, Larry Scott has transformed the stately, sleepy Pacific-10 Conference into the big-business Pac-12, expanding the conference and quadrupling its annual television-rights revenue. Scott cashed in on his aggressive moves in 2011-12, earning more than $3 million, according to tax documents released by the conference Sunday. That appears to be the highest compensation ever for a sitting college commissioner.

Scott took home a $1,376,000 bonus in addition to a base salary of $1,575,000 and other compensation of $71,462. His total compensation surpassed that of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, who made $2.8 million in salary, bonuses and benefits that year. It also is nearly double the $1.6 million listed for commissioner Mike Slive of the Southeastern Conference, which has won the past seven major-college football national titles and recently announced it will launch a network with ESPN in 2014.

In the span of 2011-12, Scott added the Universities of Colorado and Utah as members after initially exploring the possibility of a 16-team conference. He brokered a broadcast-rights deal with ESPN and Fox worth $3 billion over 12 years, elevating the Pac-12 from a distant fifth place nationally with $58 million in primary media-rights revenue to the leader, with the new deal worth an average of $250 million annually. He led the launch of the Pac-12 Networks, the only such venture to be wholly owned by a conference.

"I think we're in a very enviable position, having 100% ownership and a lot of flexibility and optionality going forward and that we've only had to license our rights for 12 years, compared to others that have now gone near 20-plus years," Scott said. The SEC's deal with ESPN runs through 2034.

The Big Ten generated $315 million in total revenue in 2011-12 and the SEC $273 million. The Pac-12 generated $176 million but made bigger gains: Its revenues have increased 83% since 2008 compared with 69% for the SEC and 45% for the Big Ten. The Big 12 Conference's revenues increased 23%. The Atlantic Coast Conference has not made public its 2011-12 tax filing.

The Pac-12 will not release financial details from 2012-13 until this time next year, when nonprofit tax filings are due. But the ESPN/Fox deal that began this academic year is likely to push overall conference revenues over $300 million.

The Pac-12 had considerable catching up to do when Scott arrived in 2009. The Big Ten launched a conference network in 2007, a joint venture with Fox, which is owned by The Wall Street Journal's parent company, News Corp. In 2008 the SEC's Slive negotiated 15-year broadcast-rights deals with CBS and ESPN worth $3 billion. Slive earned a $1 million bonus in the wake of that agreement.

Last August the conference launched Pac-12 Networks, a national network and six regional feeds, and spent about $57 million on startup costs including facility construction and hiring, Scott said in an interview. Also among those costs was $16.4 million to buy back broadcast rights from schools' existing media partners. As a result of that investment, the conference spent about $9 million more than it generated in 2011-12. The Pac-12 Networks will turn a small profit in their first year, Scott said.

"Larry is the go-to guy that pulled all this together," said Ed Ray, the Oregon State University president and head of the committee that approved Scott's compensation package. "I would say he had a hell of a year."

Scott, 48, was hired after serving six years as chairman and CEO of the Women's Tennis Association, where he landed several corporate sponsorships including an unprecedented six-year, $88 million deal with Sony Ericsson. Scott also championed a successful push to equalize prize money for the men's and women's winners at Wimbledon.

Conference commissioners have become increasingly powerful as the value of sports broadcast rights, particularly football, has skyrocketed in part because viewers tend to watch them live—including commercials. The postseason for major-college football is controlled by conferences, not the NCAA, a quirk that evolved from the sport's century-old bowl system. Last year, conference commissioners including Scott approved a four-team playoff that will start after the 2014 season. Scott's contract with the Pac-12 runs through 2016 with an option to add additional years.

The Pac-12 Networks are likely to be less profitable than the Big Ten and SEC networks in the short run but allow the Pac-12 to keep the revenue it generates and retain the option to sell an ownership share. The networks have yet to gain carriage on DirecTV, one of the nation's largest cable distributors, echoing the Big Ten's early struggles before its network gained wider distribution.

Scott said that owning its networks helps the Pac-12 "drive the academic mission in terms of promoting a broad array of Olympic sports, promoting campus content and promoting the brands of our universities in ways that would not be possible in my view if someone else is controlling your network."

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